The Cambodian Genocide: Uncomfortable Parallels

by Michelle . · 2008-12-26 12:04:00 UTC
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A note to politicians everywhere: It's best to avoid doing anything that would allow others to draw parallels between you and the perpetrators of past genocides.

Our current administration apparently did not get the memo.

Nick Kristof posted a short blog on his visit to the Tuol Sleng museum in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, which memorializes the genocide carried out by Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the 1970s:

"Then I came to a familiar picture: a man being water-boarded. Beside it was the actual water-board that the Khmer Rouge used. It turns out that the Khmer Rouge had the same fondness for water-boarding as an interrogation technique that Dick Cheney does."

Yikes.

On a slightly different but still related note, the Cambodian genocide has not yet been discussed on this blog---for the simple reason that, as I am but one lonely blogger managing this site in my "free time," my time is consumed keeping up with Darfur, the DRC, Zimbabwe, and occasionally Rwanda. This will change in the future--this is the "Stop Genocide" page, after all, and the focus should not be so narrow--but for now, I will save face by pointing you towards better resources for additional information:

[Photo from the Tuol Sleng museum.]

Michelle . has been involved in various activist endeavors, including the Teach Against Genocide pilot campaigns.
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